An unprecedented coupling of two of the
most significant artists of our time, David
Hammons Yves Klein / Yves Klein David Hammons explores points of aesthetic
harmony within two seemingly different practices. Weaving a larger narrative
through Hammons’s Basketball and Kool-Aid Drawings, Klein’s Fire Paintings and
Monochromes, to both artist’s exploration of performance and public intervention,
the exhibition looks at Hammons and Klein as artists who perform a kind of
aesthetic alchemy – investing the humblest of everyday materials with deep
aesthetic significance.

The joint exhibition of French post-war
master Yves Klein and postmodern American artist David Hammons fills two
gallery spaces on the ground floor [of the Aspen Art Museum.] A walk around the
Klein/Hammonds show is a tour of a curated conversation between the two on
topics like race, religion and art itself. The wide-ranging show includes Klein’s
signature works in blue and Hammons’ signature use of American flags and human
hair. Klein’s “Untitled Shroud Anthropometry” is positioned beside Hammons’ “Pray
for America,” featuring a man literally shrouded in an American flag with hands
in prayer.

Aspen Art Museum director and CEO Heidi
Zuckerman Jacobson said she has been working on Hammons and on the Klein estate
for 15 years to put the joint show together.

“I’ve wanted to do this show my entire
career,” Zuckerman Jacobson said. “It’s basically an undoable show. … I think
this show only could have happened right here, right now.”